Scientists race to avoid climate change harvest

Boosting yields has become almost an obsession with governments, seed companies such as Syngenta and Monsanto, and scientific bodies such as Australia’s CSIRO. Global yield growth of wheat and rice has stagnated at 0.6 percent to 0.7 percent annually over the past 10 years -- about half the production growth rate of 1.2 to 1.4 percent annually needed from now to 2050, the FAO says.